Friday, July 25, 2008

The Demand Chain

This article at TowardFreedom.com has started a little stir in the recycled news business with such creative titles as "Playstation 2 component incites African war."

The gist of the scenario is that the metal Coltan, mined in the DRC, has been the booty of many a looter, military oppressor, and western profiteer. I'll be the first to admit my own ignorance both about the mining practices and the politics of the DRC. I call attention to it here because of the implication in the Toward Freedom article and even more bluntly in the re-run versions that SONY is culpable for the human rights violations associated with Coltan by way of causing an increased demand for the metal.

SONY is, at worst, several steps away from the abuses that have taken place, but the core accusation, as I see it, is that creating extremely high demand (that is, offering a very high price) for the metal was an immoral act because it lured evidently multiple bad guys to plunder and abuse.

So, the question is, does the moral responsibility stop with those who, for instance, forcefully took control of a Coltan mine and then put children at risk by forcing them to work the mine? Or does it extend to those who bought the Coltan from them? If it extends, does it extend further to those who refined the metal and sold it as tantalum? To those who used the tantalum as a component of their capacitors and then sold the capacitors to SONY? Is SONY to blame? Are the consumers who buy the SONY products? If any moral responsibility passes up the "demand chain", what exactly is the medium of the transgression? Money? Profit? Desire?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like my sony so I don't care who I have to hurt to get it.

Anonymous said...

Who is innocent… or at least less responsible?
As a Follower of Jesus I would say that the world is fallen, it is broken. We live in a world that is tainted and as such we all bare some guilt for the choices we make. Even the most innocuous choice (such as which game console to buy) is still a product of a broken and corrupt world. Is the purchaser to blame for all of the tainted end product? Not exactly, but the purchaser is part of the tainted world and therefore participates in our collective guilt. Who is innocent or at least less responsible? No one is.
-Timothy Downing
www.xanga.com/timothyadowning

Nitika said...

Annon,

Ha!

Tim,

Sounds like you are saying all are guilty (due to original sin???). That leads to a shared blame conclusion. But as a society, we still have to decide the kind of "guilt" that will be punished in the here and now, and the kind that we prefer to leave to a higher power. Where to draw those lines is the necessary work of every society.

Anonymous said...

Nitika,
You are correct in saying the necessary work of every society is delineate lines of punishable guilt but what I have a hard time wrapping my little brain around is the origin of society’s right to determine such lines. It is the old “How can you have a moral law without any moral law giver?” argument. In a decidedly secular society such as mine, (USA), how can we justify making moral judgments without the necessary philosophical underpinnings that the Divine law giver gives? In other words can there be justifiable legal/moral judgments without also acknowledging God? To me morality and personhood are inseparable. Without knowing the attributes/personality of God, (the Divine moral law giver), moral delineations seem at best capricious.

I enjoy your blog.

-Timothy
www.xanga.com/timothyadowning

Nitika said...

Timothy,

A couple things come to mind,

1) The very nature of society is that there is some form of "social contract" which gives the group entity some degree of authority. What that degree is, of course varies according to the type of contract adopted (that is, a socialist "society" has a great deal more authority than a capitalist one). Individuals might question the moral authority of society leadership to act as they do, but at some point, such decent is essentially revolutionary/subversive and places one outside the social contract.

2) Yes, I do think the shape of prime reality (the way things really are) is foundational to defining moral action. You talk about ultimate reality in terms of the nature of God, and your morality is informed by his character. I will look at this from a Hindu perspective in my next post.

So, yes, I think theoretically we could all agree to a civil code and be justified in enforcing it. That type of agreement is sheer fantasy though, especially in a pluralistic society, so as you say "capricious" tyranny is inevitable. Much more valuable is dialogue about the nature of reality, or if you like, God. Only those completely set on absolute relativism (and isn't that ironic) should refuse to discuss this. I think to develop a moral code, all we need is significant overlap, not complete homogeneity. That conversation, BTW, is what this blog is about.

Deparchment said...

Does the money-blame move the other way? Could a giver/purchaser be blamed for the receiver/seller's actions with money that was given? So if Sony uses the money from my purchase to develop a heinous new form of destruction for people, am I blamable? If I give a person that I know money and they use it to leave their wife and kids, commit suicide, or otherwise behave destructively, am I to blame? Does the blame go away if I "don't know that they would do that"? Should we be punishing people that give to non-profit institutions that in turn support terrorism?

How about I do what I think is right and you do what you think is right and we deal with the consequences of life as we go?

Nitika said...

Dep,

Resourcing, funding, through donation, through patronizing... these are choices. We may choose to "push" resources in one direction as opposed to another. In a positive sense I think this can be a profoundly moral act, that is doing "good". It is interesting to me that morality discussions more easily flow to the assignment of blame and guilt rather than to the act of producing good in the world.